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Sunday, March 22, 2015

Lady Blackbird

I've heard about John Harper's Lady Blackbird for a few years, but Thursday night was the first chance I had to play the game. Lady Blackbird is a steampunk Firefly space game with a baked-in "first chapter" set-up for adventures: Lady Blackbird is fleeing an arranged marriage with the help of the crew of the Owl (a small space freighter which looks more than a little like a Firefly-class ship). She and her crew have been captured by the Imperial cruiser Hand of Sorrow, and they are stuck in the brig.

The adventure begins there, but groups can readily play out new adventures.

Lady Blackbird uses an extremely light, narrative-focused RPG system. One of our players, Eric, thought was derived from The Pool, an archetypal indy game mechanism from which many specific games took inspiration. Some of the terminology used in the game (particularly the Keys) reminded me of The Shadow of Yesterday/Solar System RPG, which I always thought was a neat game and world but have never had the chance to play.

We'll be doing at least one more session of Lady Blackbird this week. Thanks to our able GM Rachel for offering to run this for us!

About Me

Last and First Men

"In your day you have learnt to calculate something of the magnitudes of space and time. But to grasp my theme in its true proportions, it is necessary to do more than calculate. It is necessary to brood upon these magnitudes, to draw out the mind toward them, to feel the littleness of your here and now, and of the moment of civilization you call history." - Olaf Stapledon